Stay on target

Remember when the whole online Nintendo community was working itself into a frenzy waiting for a hypothetical Nintendo Direct presentation? And then that presentation actually happened without warning? Wild times. But one interesting tidbit is that the whole reason we all thought a January Direct was imminent, aside from historical precedent, was because of leaked documents for Fe, an upcoming indie game published under EA’s artsy Originals umbrella. And sure enough the game was part of the Direct.

Now that we’ve gotten a chance to play Fe (not Fire Emblem) ahead of its release later this February, we can say Nintendo fans and gaming fans in general should pay attention to this one for more than just news leaks. This fanciful trip through the forest blends several illustrious gaming influences into something pretty fresh so far.

Fe comes from Swedish developer Zoink, creators of Zombie Vikings and Stick it to the Man! But whereas those games use a comedic macabre 2D paper cut-out kind of art style, with Fe Zoink has spent years realizing a gorgeous 3D crystalline forest world inspired by Swedish folklore. Gradients of one luminous color, loads of contrast, and abstract designs turn the sylvan world you explore into a work of art. This is true both on PlayStation 4 as well as Nintendo Switch, although we did notice more framerate issues on the handheld we hope get ironed out at or post-launch.

The mysterious abstract beauty applies to the story as well, which the developers cited David Lynch of all people as an inspiration for. As you guide your fairy avatar through the natural ecosystem, you’ll occasionally come across abandoned helmets, usually next to a wall of hieroglyphs with its own lore. Putting a helmet on transports you to a brief first-person interlude where you walk around trying to absorb whatever story you can gleam about the menacing silent cycloptic foes and the overall state of the world.

But whereas Fe’s art and general mood may remind some of Journey or Flower or another ThatGameCompany game, the actual gameplay side aims to be a little bit more robust. In an indie game scene dominated by 2D Metroidvanias, Fe excites us by daring to make an interconnected nonlinear world to explore in all three dimensions, albeit a jumpy woodland world closer to Super Mario 64 than Metroid Prime.

As lovely as Fe’s fantastical forest initially is, the focus on a single color scheme can make it difficult to find your way further if you’re just jumping and poking around. However, once you start making use of your Metroid/Zelda-esque abilities the actual breadth of the landscape opens up in some very satisfying ways. One of your skills is the ability to sing with other children of Mother Nature. Using either analog triggers or motion controls, adjust your pitch until you sync up with your partner. Depending on the plant or animal, you’ll then get help like blooming flower pedal platforms or a flying friend who shows you the path forward.

That’s just one of several powers we saw, though. By freeing adult animals you can learn their language and take advantage of their helpful children. Sing in bird language to harvest bomb plants. Burrow and leap with a family of ferrets. Climb and glide through trees to reach the top of a massive, Shadow of the Colossus-type deer. That impressive set piece is only from the first quarter or so of the game, leaving us wondering what we didn’t see.

Frustratingly, I didn’t quite get a feel for all these tools in my demo, inaccurately predicting how far and high and long a glide might go for example. This resulted in some deaths very familiar to players of old unpolished 3D platformers. But hopefully the final game eases players into their arsenal, unlike in this demo where we were just skipping around at will.

A good 3D open interconnected platforming adventure game is a lot to take on for an indie team. And that’s before you add “exquisite art style” to the to-do list. We’ll see if Fe can pull it all off when it launches on February 16 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.